Many Australian capital cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Hobart, have become more expensive over the past year compared to the rest of the world.

Most expensive cities:

Hamilton, Bermuda

Zurich, Switzerland

Geneva, Switzerland

Basel, Switzerland

Bern, Switzerland

Lausanne, Switzerland

Reykjavik, Iceland

Stavanger, Norway

Lugano, Switzerland

Oslo, Norway

Australia's most expensive city — Sydney — has risen to number 32 in this year's Cost of Living Index, compiled by price aggregation website Numbeo.com. It is up from 41 last year.

Melbourne rose to 64, up from 77, while Adelaide, Cairns, Hobart and Canberra also moved up the list to 58, 69, 82 and 103 respectively.

Only Perth (56), Darwin (68) and Brisbane (93) have become more affordable.

The UNSW Business School's Professor Kristy Muir, chief of the Centre for Social Impact, said although we have had a "couple of decades of the strongest growth in GDP" and are seeing low inflation rates around the country, "day to day this doesn't reflect individuals' household living expenses".

"They're really struggling with their housing repayments, they're struggling with their living expenses, and they're struggling to basically meet debts and to cover the general costs of living," she said.

"The cost of living for people on welfare is particularly challenging because you have a limited amount of income coming in, and yet your expenses have increased.

Switzerland dominates top 10

The top 10 most expensive countries has remained largely unchanged over the past 12 months, with Hamilton in Bermuda hanging onto the top spot and Swiss cities including Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Bern dominating the top 10.

New York came in at number 14, with Tokyo at 21 and Paris at 23.

At 42 on the list was London, which again ranked more affordable than Sydney.

The index, which uses New York prices as a benchmark, showed the cost of living in Hamilton was 145 per cent of New York's, while in Sydney it was 91 per cent and in London it was 89 per cent.

While Sydney ranked 32 in the list of most expensive cities overall, it was the 16th most expensive city in terms of rent.

A one-bedroom, city centre apartment costs the equivalent of $3,881 a month in New York, $2,876 in London and $2,618 in Sydney.

Nationally, the Numbeo report found costs like groceries, rent and restaurant prices were most expensive in Sydney and Darwin, while cities like Hobart, Cairns and the Gold Coast had some of the cheapest.